As a child, my grandmother made this syrup with fresh roses from her garden, when roses actually smelled of roses. She simmered the freshly washed petals with the sugar syrup. The roses  infused the syrup with their soft scent and tinted the syrup a bright ruby red.

A favorite treat she made in the summer was homemade popsicles. She crushed the ice and molded it into balls on a stick and poured the sticky ruby red liquid all over it. It was such fun, sitting in her garden amongst her flower pots, indulging on what was once growing on the shrub next to us.

Well with summer around the corner, it’s time to bust out the ideal recipe for a cool refreshing drink.  My take on the perfect drink is a homemade rose syrup that’s been infused with cardamom pods, complimented with a hint of licorice flavor, from the fennel seeds and a bit of a zing from the ginger. I seldom use organic red roses to add to the syrup as they cost ‘an arm and a leg’ but if you have access to them, a handful of red petals should do.  In my recipe I’ve used a good quality rose essence to infuse this syrup instead.

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